Saturday 17 February 2007

A Talking Snake?

I found this article online. Here's one way around the talking snake problem. I will comment after the article...

A Talking Snake?

Q. This has driven me crazy and no one ever talks about it. Why didn't Adam and Eve think it strange that a serpent could actually speak to them? I would have been freaked out.

A. Great question, but one rarely asked. The Hebrew word translated serpent in Genesis 3:1 is used 31 times in the Old Testament and is never translated any other way. But it comes from a root meaning "to practice divination." As a noun this root is translated "enchantment" and in its verb form, "enchanter."

Whatever confronted Eve probably came to be called a serpent because of the judgment God pronounced upon it, that it would crawl on its belly and eat dust all the days of its life.(Gen. 3:14) But what it looked like before its judgment is anybody's guess, except that it almost certainly didn't look like a snake. Satan himself is called "that ancient serpent" in Rev. 12:9 but nobody thinks of him as looking like a snake. Paul said that he masquerades as an angel of light. (2 Cor. 11:14)

We don't know what form the devil took on to have his chat with Eve, but whatever it was didn't frighten her. Nor did she appear surprised to find herself conversing with it, but was persuaded by it's logic, though flawed, and the authority with which it spoke.

Some have speculated that before the fall man and animals could talk with one another, but other than this event and the incident with Balaam's donkey there's no indication of that being generally so. It's more likely that Satan came to Eve as a familiar figure, someone she recognized and perhaps even admired. Remember, the angels had been created sometime earlier. (Job 38:4-7)

Great question, but one rarely asked? Hello? Even Ricky Gervais asked this one! But before I let him answer this one for you, let me point out that the text in Genesis says nothing about the devil or an angel of some sort and even calls the serpent 'the most crafty of all the animals'. It makes it clear that the serpent was an animal, not a supernatural being. Anyway, take it away Ricky...


3 comments:

mothpete said...

OH Ricky you're so fine, you're so fine you blow my mind!

I would have sooooo hated Ricky Gervais a few year ago. Now I practically worship the guy.

Snakes get a bad rap, perhaps it's because they're so phallic. The story would be more believable to me if it was a talking toad, because I KNOW they're evil!

Why I Don't Believe said...

It was you that put me on to that video. I downloaded the whole DVD...funny stuff.

Ms yvonne edwards said...

seeing as how Eve was the first woman,and not yet having eaten from the tree of knowledge,she would not have known that snakes weren't supposed to talk.Perhaps before the initial sin,humans and animals could communicate on that level.it certainly happens to a degree now.so to say "a talking snake!"is dismissing the idea by our fallen world standards.After all Adam and Eve were the only people fortunate to have experienced the word as it was created,in its perfect form.